Newark

For more than 50-years, Cissy Houston has led the choir at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark. The perfect place for a gathering to celebrate her life’s work. City officials say Houston’s big day in Newark was year’s in the making. Mayor Ras Baraka presented Cissy Houston a key to the city.

“Her singing talent expresses our highest values, inspires audiences around the world and right here in our neighborhoods. She is a pioneer and advocate for the arts. One of the greatest legends in musical and Newark history.”

The shelter targets the homeless population around Newark Penn Station, the public library, and several surrounding parks, but Mayor Ras Baraka says anybody who needs a bed and a meal, are welcome to stop by to get warm.

“We have to provide shelter but also give services so we can help them march their way into society. It’s one thing to give people fish, it’s another thing to teach them how to fish. That’s what we are trying to do here. Give them the opportunity and provide a shelter that is not like the other shelters that exist.

The line stretches around the block as hundreds of Newark families wait outside on an unseasonably warm December day with their kids, for early holiday presents. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka makes small talk with residents and looks over piles of toys organized by the appropriate age group.

The Newark Yoga Movement has been trying it’s best to reduce stress around the city for a number of years.

“And in regard to the schools which is our primary focus, it was really to try to help children perform a little bit better academically and feel better personally," said Debby Kaminsky, founder of the Newark Yoga Movement. Her classes are regularly visiting students and teachers in city classrooms ranging from K-12.

A new art exhibit at Aljira in downtown Newark is bringing social justice advocates together to bring attention to the issue of mass incarceration.

Recent statistics from the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey show there’s over 35,000 people living behind bars in state penitentiaries. ACLU Criminal Justice Transparency Fellow Portia Allen Kyle says that comes at a cost of about 55,000 dollars for each incarcerated person per year.

Hector partner Damon Rich is one of the 24 people to be awarded a 2017 MacArthur Fellowship, a "no-strings-attached award to extraordinarily talented and creative individuals as an investment in their potential."

Hector is a Newark-based urban design, planning, and civic arts studio. Damon Rich sat down recently with WBGO's Doug Doyle to talk about the award, his outlook on urban design, his experiences working with three different Newark Mayors and his future opportunities.

We’ll be discussing local control of Newark Public Schools during our live broadcast of Newark Today Thursday October 19 at 8PM. We invite the community to be a part of the audience at Express Newark in the downtown district’s historic Hahne’s building. Your host, NJTV’s Michael Hill will be joined by city Mayor Ras Baraka and a panel of guests. Doors open tonight at 7:15. Newark Today live October 19 at 8PM on WBGO and wbgo.org

Now that Newark Public Schools are in position to regain control of governance from the state, parents are asking if the city is ready.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka is asking residents and local elected officials to make Red Cross donations to aid hurricane victims in Puerto Rico.

“To raise the kind of money and resources using the American Red Cross designated to Hurricane Maria and Puerto Rico. People can be rest assured that the money that we raise will go directly to hurricane relief efforts in Puerto Rico.”

State Senator Terisa Ruiz is hoping the entire state contributes to Hurricane Maria relief efforts in Puerto Rico.

A pair of industrial fans blow in the gymnasium at West Side High School in Newark. A yoga instructor introduces the mountain pose to about one-hundred members of the school’s staff.

“We’re going into our ninth year in some city schools,” said Debbie Kaminsky, founder of Newark Yoga Movement. “We found that after a twenty-minute session of yoga, that 64 percent of students were more peaceful and less stressed. So with that, we started bringing yoga to more schools in Newark. It really has traction after we taught over 26,000 students and over 3,000 educators.”

From exhibitions spotlighting Brazilian culture, to a film festival hosted at the Newark Public Library, there’s a little something for everybody during Brazil week 2017.

“I’ve been doing this for twenty-five years. It’s a great thing for the city of Newark because a large population of the Brazilian people here want to show the city who we are.” said Jose Moreira, president of Newark’s Brazilian Day Festival. “

Silvana Magda is the curator of various special Brazilian exhibitions around Newark. In city hall this year, it’s all about female empowerment.

If your landlord knew your apartment infested with rodents and roaches, moldy from water leaks and did little to nothing about it, would you pay your rent? That was the question for one Newark resident when the bathroom ceiling of her apartment collapsed.

“We’re living worse than squatters. It’s not fair to us, it’s not fair to our kids, it’s not fair to our neighbors, it’s not right.”

Because of poor living conditions, Yanira Cortes started withholding payments to her landlord. She’s been in and out of court for several years.

The Abyssnian Baptist Church hosted a commemoration of the 1967 Newark Rebellion on Tuesday night. The prayer service offered interfaith clergy the opportunity to come together.

The event featured Junius Williams, director of the Abbott Leadership Institute, and Mayor of Newark Ras J. Baraka. Both Williams and Baraka spoke about the need for an accurate depiction of Newark prior to and during 1967. To Baraka, Newark would not be the city it is today without the unrest 50 years ago.

On Monday, July 3, City Mayor, Ras Baraka, announced his ‘2017 Summer Youth Employment Program’. For the third straight year, Mayor Baraka, has reached out and provided jobs for the young adults in the City of Newark.

The population of Newark, and the Jewish Community in particular, dwindled drastically after the 1967 Newark Rebellion. While some call it “white flight,” others say the national push towards suburbanization pulled them away.

Over 65,000 people once made up Newark’s Jewish community. William Helmreich, author and educator, says an undue amount of blame is placed on the 1967 Newark Rebellion for pushing them out.

The city of Newark recently celebrated it’s third class of Hire Newark graduates. The unique job readiness program, in partnership with Newark Beth Israel Medical Center and RWJBarnabas Health, that is giving unemployed residents a fresh outlook on life.

“We are so immeasurably different than people think we are by just looking at us.”

Fatima Hargrove is one of 20 graduates of Hire Newark, an employment boot camp and job readiness program that helps chronically unemployed residents re-enter the workforce.

A 5.5 million dollar renovation to the Newark Museum will restore its original entrance on Washington Street. Museum CEO Steven Kern says it will expand the capacity for more exhibits.

“By opening these doors and reconnecting with the community, replacing big bronze doors with glass doors so people so people can see what is happening in the museum as they walk by. [It] means that we can also redistribute space on the inside so we can grow the size of our special exhibition space to make us more competitive nationally.”

On this edition of Newark Today we talk policing and federal consent decrees in New Jersey's largest city with Mayor Ras J. Baraka, activist and leader of The People's Organization For Progress Larry Hamm, and former U. S. District Attorney for the state of New Jersey Paul Fishman.

In the wake of the numerous deaths of young black men at the hands of police, the rise of the black lives matter movement, and the mass incarceration epidemic, tensions have been at an all time high in recent years. A new program being launched in the city of Newark is working to change all that. The All Star Project’s Cops and Kids program is working to break the stereotypes that often lead to tension between young people and the police.

“Their cousins, their family members, fathers have been locked up before so it makes them have that negative outlook.”

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka delivered his third annual State Of The City address earlier this week. Baraka focused his speech on changing perceptions about New Jersey’s largest city, as a city plagued by violence and poverty, to a place of growth and innovation.

The city of Newark openly invites every resident to take a ten to fifteen-minute paper survey of questions addressing their thoughts on Newark-police community relationships, based on personal experiences. The site in central ward felt sort of like a school testing area, but the participants didn’t fill out their questionnaires in silence. Many were openly voicing their support for the federal monitor over the Newark Police Department.

City officials and members of Newark’s arts community gathered at city hall this week for the release of the NC350 year-end report. The detailed report highlights the yearlong celebration of the city’s 350-year history and its impact on the community.

A New Jersey woman has found a unique way to raise awareness of her heart condition.

Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, a genetic condition, thickens the walls of the heart and disrupts blood flow in the body. If it goes undetected or mistreated, it becomes life threatening. Such is the case for Lisa Salberg of Rockaway Township, whose family has battled HCM for generations.

There were 163 reported protests, riots, rebellions, and uprisings across the United States in the summer of '67. No communities more impacted than Detroit and Newark. Max Herman is the author of ‘Summer of Rage: An Oral History of the 1967 Newark and Detroit Riots’. He says that year is difficult for many residents of both cities to revisit.

“In Newark it has been commemorated but in Detroit, I think for the first time they’re having a program this summer,” Herman said.

It’s been over twenty years since the state took control of Newark Public School’s because of low graduation rates and overall poor student performance. It’s been a rocky road for the city’s education system since, and many residents believe not much has changed over the course of time.

At First Avenue School in Newark’s North Ward, about 100 city residents gathered to hear Mayor Ras Baraka’s latest updates on regaining local control of schools. They had their own concerns.

When the city of Newark announced the Mulberry Commons Project last month, transforming lot and warehouse space on Prudential Centers Mulberry St. side into a 22-acre park, was it possible for something to outshine the ambitious project. I guess that depends on if you like music more than shops and recreational activity. The Grammy Museum Experience will use 8,000 square feet of Prudential Center space to bring its history to New Jersey. Daniel Cherry is the Chief Marketing Innovation Officer for the New Jersey Devils. He says they’re a perfect match.

“Build community. Not a wall,” was what echoed down Broad Street, Thursday morning, as a bit over a hundred people gathered in protest of President Trump’s executive order, in front of Grace Church in Newark. Grace Church, which stands on the corner of Broad Street and Walnut since 1837, is directly adjacent to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services building. The rally that began around 9 a.m. brought in several members from various religions that offered their support to immigrants.